I have a confession to make.

[Zsofia]

My Christmas wreath is still up, inside the house. It's live. Or, I mean, I guess, it was live. Now it's a fire hazard. It's going to be May soon.

Your turn. I promise not to tell.

[freckafree]

Originally Posted by Zsofia

My Christmas wreath is still up, inside the house. It's live. Or, I mean, I guess, it was live. Now it's a fire hazard. It's going to be May soon.

Your turn. I promise not to tell.

My Christmas swag is still on my front door. It's more than mostly dead.

[Geek Mecha]

We had an inspection at my building today, so after getting notice of it last Thursday, I finally took down our 3' artificial Christmas tree.

I'm going on vacation in May, so I knew that if I didn't take it down, it would be mid-June by the time the sucker came down, if at all. "Hey, I've left it up six months too long already. In another four months I'll just have to put it back up. Why not just leave it...?"

[pinkfreud]

We have a string of multicolored outdoor Christmas lights along the roof in the back of the house. The lights have been there since 1998.

[myskepticsight]

My friends and I drew names for Secret Santa.

None of us have exchanged them yet. The gift I bought is sitting, wrapped in a Christmas bag, on my bedroom floor. Five months now.

[HazelNutCoffee]

I still have some random Christmas shit up on the walls. I'm moving in a couple months anyway so I really can't be bothered.

The remnants of our jack o'lantern are still on our front windowsill. Beat that.

[Campion]

When I moved into my current house, the previous owners left a lot of stuff. Some of it was awesome (they left, for example, trash cans and alcohol). But they also left these burgundy paisley valances in the guest bedroom. I noted the exquisite ugliness of the valances, and thought, "I really need to get rid of those."

A few weeks later, the previous owners stopped by to see if I had any questions about how to work things around the house. I pointed out that they'd left the valances; did they want them?

"You know, it's funny," she said. "When we moved in here ten years ago, the previous owners left them. We always thought they were ugly, but for some reason, we never got around to taking them down."

I told the story to a friend of mine a few days later. He looked at me, then walked into the guest bedroom and took the valances down.

So, there but for the grace of God go I.

[mnemosyne]

I had a Christmas ribbon that I'd weaved into the blinds on the front door; I finally took that down this week and stuffed it on a shelf in the store room. There is also a strand of lights in the front window that we forgot to take down. It doesn't even reach the plug, as we had set things up with a power bar so we could have the tree in that corner. We just took everything down and forgot about those lights. I'm pretty sure they'll be there until next Christmas, because the boxes they go in are awkward to reach, and we are both, in fact, just that lazy.

There is also a rock, on a kitchen window sill, that was there when we moved in. It's a big, round rock, but it doesn't do anything (of course not, it's a rock!). I mean, it doesn't hold anything down or prop anything up - it's just there. But even after being here for nearly 2 years, we haven't moved it or got rid of it. I think we feel that it really isn't ours, so we'll just leave it there until we move. Not that I can get to it now anyways, as it is sealed between the two windows and winterized-saran-wrapped in. I assume we'll take the winter seal down sometime before July.

[SomeUserName]

I still have hard boiled eggs in the fridge from Easter that I have not throw out yet.

Does that count?

[Audrey Levins]

I tell people that I did reply to their text-messages and the network is to blame if they didn't receive them. I'm very sincere.

When in fact I just ignored them because I was lazy and/or didn't want to talk to them.

I've also claimed that I'm not feeling well when really I'm just bored and want to go somewhere else.

I have crap in my trunk from when I moved six months ago that was important enough to pack but not important enough to take out of the trunk. Perhaps it never will be.

I've told people that I've seen movies/TV shows that I actually haven't seen, just so that they won't bore me with descriptions.

My mother thinks I love the quilts she makes me.

I flipped off an old lady in a Lincoln the other day for taking too long to make a right-hand turn.

I feel cleansed now.

[Zsofia]

Originally Posted by HazelNutCoffee

I still have some random Christmas shit up on the walls. I'm moving in a couple months anyway so I really can't be bothered.

The remnants of our jack o'lantern are still on our front windowsill. Beat that.

So, what happens to it? Does it just mold away? Does it eventually dry out?

Also, this morning I pretended like I was late because I forgot I had to work today (it's not my usual schedule) but actually I just took a long time in the shower and lost track of time. And I read a chapter more in the bathroom than I intended to.

[Zulema]

The cat threw up behind a chair more than a week ago and it's still there. My husband saw it first and didn't do anything about it so I'm not either.

My Christmas village is still up.

The new window sticker is still on the basement window from when the house was built 7 years ago. Last year I finally took the building permit out of the garage window.

[Dung Beetle]

One year I didn't change my car clock for daylight savings time and just waited until it got to be right again. Changing the clock takes about twenty seconds.

The trunk of my car has piles of shavings in it from a rabbit cage I transported a couple of months ago. I have no plans to remove them, ever. I also don't wash my car. I think the Saturn people do it when I get the oil changed every 4 or 5 thousand miles.

[Surly Chick]

I have a year old Hefty bag of dog poop in my backyard. It's been tied shut the whole time. I'm afraid to go close enough to pick it up now to put it in the real trash. And it rains a lot here so I'm sure water has seeped in and liquified it.

I'm moving in 3 months so I'm going to have to do something about it. I wonder if there's someplace I can rent a biohazard suit...

[WhyNot]

You guys need to look at this differently. It's not just a Christmas wreath - soon it will be a May Day wreath! I try to work it out so that all my decorations evolve through the seasons, and I emphasize that it's "a reflection of the circle of the seasons". The Christmas (Winter Solstice) tree becomes the Maypole, except for the end, which is cut off for next year's Yule Log. The Maypole becomes the support pole for the Corn Man or John Barleycorn in the fall and is burnt with him. John Barleycorn's ashes are used to darken the altar for Samhain (Halloween). I get a whole three months' legitimate use out of the Halloween decorations, because we're in "The Dark of the Year"!

Neopaganism: it's everywhere you don't want to clean.

[Anne Neville]

Hi, neighbors!

Well, one of you must be my next-door neighbor. They still have what looks to me very much like a Christmas wreath on their front door.

I don't mind. I won't say I didn't leave my Hanukkah decorations up well into January (and Hanukkah decorations are easier to put up and take down than Christmas ones, at least if you only put up menorahs and electric menorahs like I do), and I won't say I'm always on top of yard or house work that needs to be done. I put my trash out before 9pm the night before trash day (I think we're not supposed to do that, but everybody does). I'm glad my neighborhood doesn't have a homeowners association that nags people about stuff like this.

[Hockey Monkey]

My Christmas tree is still up. (It's a skinny pencil tree that doesn't take up much room). I kinda like it. Of course the ornament boxes are still on the dining room floor and the Christmas wrap box is still out as well. I do have it on my list to put Christmas away though. As soon as I get around to it.

I also have a bag of junk from ever car I've traded in since 1995. (I've had 7 cars just in the last 5 years)*. It seemed important enough to clean out of the cars, but once those bags came into the house, they haven't been looked into since. I'm betting there's some good stuff in there that I've been looking for.



*I work at a dealership.

[HazelNutCoffee]

Originally Posted by Zsofia

So, what happens to it? Does it just mold away? Does it eventually dry out?

It looks like a deflated balloon, kinda. If a balloon were pale orange and spotted with mold. Even the birds won't touch it.

[drm]

I've got no interesting Christmas Stories like that, but my uncle was one of those people who kept Christmas lights up year round. I believe he had one strand up for a little over a decades (which seems like an exceptionally long lifespan to me, but what do I know).

Things that aren't Christmas related:

I have a to do list sitting tacked on to my bulletin board that's been there for over a year.

Another uncle had two dead goats (We named them Paul and Enid) sitting in his abandoned barn for at least five years. To be honest, they may still be there (in some capacity).

[Savannah]

When I went out to prune the rose bush at the front of the house in January, I thought, 'those Christmas lights need to go in the shed'. They're the white ones on a green mesh that you wrap around the shrubbery. I pruned the rose bush (quite severely) and cleaned up and put the pruning secateurs away. When I weeded the pathway along the rose bush and shrubbery, I thought 'those Christmas lights need to go in the shed.' I swept up all the weeds and that was good. When I weeded the bed where the shrubs and roses are, I thought 'those Christmas lights really need to be taken down and put in the shed'. I swept up the weeds and dumped them in the weed-dumping-place in the back yard, and it was good. When I raked the front and put down more bark mulch, it occurred to me that 'those Christmas lights... I really should pull them off the shrubs and put them in the shed.' The new mulch looked good, and every year there are fewer weeds. When I periodically checked in the months since the severe pruning to ensure that I hadn't, in fact, killed the rose bush, I thought 'it's time to put those Christmas lights away...' When it was time to trim the shrubbery to keep the shape, I thought, ‘yes, indeed, it’s time to put those lights in the shed.’ I trimmed the one shrubbery of the four that grows the most vigorously, and things were looking good. One of the things I have to do this weekend, before the rose buds out too much and I can’t get to it, is to go and pull off all the leaves on the !@#$$%^^&* ivy that was planted with the rose. Maybe when I there, I’ll take the Christmas lights and…

My birthday’s in June. For my birthday, I sure hope the Christmas lights get put in the shed. (In my defense, they’re dark green and unplugged, and blend into the shrubbery quite nicely when not on and twinkling.)

[Savannah]

Originally Posted by HazelNutCoffee

It looks like a deflated balloon, kinda. If a balloon were pale orange and spotted with mold. Even the birds won't touch it.

I take our pumpkin every year and put it in the back yard part that becomes 'wild' and where I put my weeds, and as November darkens and becomes December and January, I watch it rot. It suits the mood of November, and it's kind of interesting in a 'body farm' kind of way. It usually composts itself down to nothing.

I keep hoping for pumpkins in the wild come summer, but none so far.

I think I have an interesting approach to gardening and yard care, come to think of it. I also like playing with rocks in the back yard.

[Alpine]

I still have some Christmas decorations up, too. And we weren't even in town for Christmas. Or else our tree would be sitting on the deck, I'm sure.

I have some street signs in the back of my car (not stolen, long story) that have been there for 2 years now. They make noise, they take up space and they're getting all scratched up, but I haven't taken them to the office. Or rather, I haven't removed them while I'm at the office. Which is every day. My car is definitely the Pit of Despair - I never clean it.

I'm very impressed by HazelNutCoffee's pumpkin.

[Harmonious Discord]

I took down my 2 foot fiber optic christmas tree two weeks ago, to make room for my plants. I needed the lights on them because of to many cloudy days.

Mother insists on dying easter eggs, and they are all still in the refrigerator. I did think of them yesterday, but forgot to say something about throwing them out. She finally threw out the easter ham bone yesterday.

[InappropriateHumor]

I love you guys.

I'm impressed by HazelNutCoffee's pumpkin, too. Also relieved for her that it's on the outside of the window.

At my old house we set the jack-o-lanterns on the fireplace hearth each year. One year I tossed a seldom-used jacket over one of them and left it there until December. The pumpkin rot was fused to the hearth and took some mighty scrubbing to clean up. Yes, it stunk, and no, I couldn't figure out where that awful stench was coming from. It had stopped stinking by the time I found it.

I have a bag of ice-melt in the trunk of my car from last winter. It recently developed a hole, so maybe I should think of taking it out. There's a remote chance I'll vacuum it (I wouldn't hold my breath).

My car broke down in January and was out of commission for almost a month. I put all the "important" stuff from it in a box. When I got my car back, I put the box on the back seat. It's still there, disintegrating, all the important stuff falling out the side onto the floor.

[Zebra]

I'm imagining you naked right now.

[pbbth]

Originally Posted by Zebra

I'm imagining you naked right now.

What a coincidence! I am also imagining me naked right now!

I moved into my apartment a year ago and I still have about 5 boxes left to unpack.

[Projammer]

When I bought my home there were some cheap brass butterflies hanging on the wall over the mirror in the bathroom.

Every time I see them I.. Ahh.. Have other things on my mind.

Then after I stand up and get all clothing back into place I never look back up there and they are forgotten until next time.

ETA: They've been there about five years now.

Why yes, I do have the attention span of a goldfish. Why do you ask?

[Ghanima]

Ha! I can one-up you on this one. I finally let my husband throw out our Halloween pumpkin just last week!

ETA: just read the rest of the thread. I got nothing. You people are lazy!!!!

[HazelNutCoffee]

Originally Posted by Ghanima

Ha! I can one-up you on this one. I finally let my husband throw out our Halloween pumpkin just last week!

Obviously you did not read the entire thread.

Here it is, sitting in the flowerbox outside our window. I was hoping it'd be gone by spring, but no such luck. I guess most of the winter it's just been frozen solid.

[Projammer]

Originally Posted by HazelNutCoffee

Obviously you did not read the entire thread.

Here it is, sitting in the flowerbox outside our window. I was hoping it'd be gone by spring, but no such luck. I guess most of the winter it's just been frozen solid.

Yech. Last time I saw something that looked like that I was at a retirement facility and someone's gown gapped open.

[Dung Beetle]

OMG, that picture just slew me! I'm just sitting here giggling at that poor, poor pumpkin.

[Silver Tyger]

I live with my sister. All our Christmas decorations are still up. We never put up a tree, but we have garland on the windows and stockings up. We never got around to Christmas for the cats so the stockings are still full.

We also currently have no dining room table. It's a butterfly table and has been folded and pushed against the wall to make room for a hammock we're trying out for RenFaire. It's fab and the cats love it, but I'd like the dining room back. It's been up for about two weeks now.

I also still have clean laundry waiting in baskets to be put away (only from last week), the dishwasher needs to be emptied, and my desk has been taken over by a giant pile of papers. I've been too busy to do anything and my sister is never home. I'm cleaning house tonight. I swear.

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by Silver Tyger Girl

I also still have clean laundry waiting in baskets to be put away (only from last week)

I almost never put my laundry away these days. I take it back from the cleaners and just wear it out of the bag, since it's already nicely folded.

[delphica]

Originally Posted by HazelNutCoffee

Obviously you did not read the entire thread.

Here it is, sitting in the flowerbox outside our window. I was hoping it'd be gone by spring, but no such luck. I guess most of the winter it's just been frozen solid.

I SWEAR the entire reason that mankind has relentlessly pursued the advancement of technology is so that people would have the means to share pictures of decomposing pumpkins on message boards. That was awesome.

[mnemosyne]

I remembered another thing.... last fall, my husband and I did a huge bedroom cleanup, and got rid of a whole bunch of clothes and old sheets and shoes, etc. The stuff that was good enough to donate was packed into bags and into my husband's car, and the rest was tossed.


The stuff is still in the car. Due to the insane amount of snow and the fact that I now go to school and use transit, my husband has left his car, full of clothes intended for donation, parked at his workplace since.... December? He may have taken it once or twice since. He starts it up and drives it around the block every week or so (I'm not sure, but he tells me he checks on it). Sooner or later we will donate this stuff.

[Merhouse]

I bought some really nice Holiday Season cards that haven't been sent out yet.

I should mention that I bought them for the 1987 Holiday Season.

[TroubleAgain]

Originally Posted by Savannah

I take our pumpkin every year and put it in the back yard part that becomes 'wild' and where I put my weeds, and as November darkens and becomes December and January, I watch it rot. It suits the mood of November, and it's kind of interesting in a 'body farm' kind of way. It usually composts itself down to nothing.

I keep hoping for pumpkins in the wild come summer, but none so far.

I think I have an interesting approach to gardening and yard care, come to think of it. I also like playing with rocks in the back yard.

Two pumpkins were tossed into the treeline of the greenspace where folks walk their dogs in my neighborhood. The big one finally collapsed to goo in February. The little one, just this month. And that's in Florida, where it's warm for most of the year!

[Hal Briston]

Originally Posted by HazelNutCoffee

Here it is, sitting in the flowerbox outside our window. I was hoping it'd be gone by spring, but no such luck. I guess most of the winter it's just been frozen solid.

FTR, that is now my desktop background.

[Scubaqueen]

My house is neat as a pin.
You could eat off my floors.
My garage, however, is another matter entirely.
My garage is the stuff of nightmares.
And lately, my nose has detected the sharp aroma of either paint thinner or turpentine that has somehow escaped the confines of its container, and now leaks slowly and patiently and with no doubt nefarious intent somewhere within that vast and terrifying landscape that is my garage. My two-car attached garage.
I have to deal with it.
Soon.
Really.
BE afraid?
I AM afraid.

‘Within, walls continue upright, concrete slabs meet neatly, floors are firm, and doors are sensibly shut; silence lies steadily against the wood and concrete of my garage, and whatever walks there, walks alone.’
-- with sincerest apologies to and blatant plagiarism of the opening paragraph of the best-selling novel 'The Haunting of Hill House' by Shirley Jackson (1959).

[WhyNot]

Originally Posted by HazelNutCoffee

Here it is, sitting in the flowerbox outside our window. I was hoping it'd be gone by spring, but no such luck. I guess most of the winter it's just been frozen solid.

Y'know, I can't stop clicking on that link. There's something bizarrely compelling about that picture - something about the death and decay and lost hopes of winter, the bleak bare tree branches, juxtaposed with the swelling of new life in the buds, and the valiant struggle to survive demonstrated by the green leafy thing on the left.


...or maybe it's just that it looks like an old person's butt.


Either way, it's way better art than that coming out of Yale today, so congratulations on a fine photo!

[Silver Tyger]

Originally Posted by Marley23

I almost never put my laundry away these days. I take it back from the cleaners and just wear it out of the bag, since it's already nicely folded.

Folding? What's that? That's one of those imaginary things like 'making the bed', right? (I kid. Mostly. If I get sick of folding stuff, I kinda just drape it and shove it in the drawer.) (And no, I don't ever make my bed. Phooey on that.)

I also have a box of stuff I keep meaning to take over to iSoldIt to sell on eBay. I know, I could do it myself, but it's a pain in the ass and I don't wanna.

[Thinks2Much]

Originally Posted by Savannah

I take our pumpkin every year and put it in the back yard part that becomes 'wild' and where I put my weeds, and as November darkens and becomes December and January, I watch it rot. It suits the mood of November, and it's kind of interesting in a 'body farm' kind of way. It usually composts itself down to nothing.

I keep hoping for pumpkins in the wild come summer, but none so far.

I think I have an interesting approach to gardening and yard care, come to think of it. I also like playing with rocks in the back yard.

We did this one year, and the pumpkin plant overtook our backyard! No matter how many times we cut it, it would regrow that year. We ended up with two pumpkins big enough to carve that Halloween.

We just burned our Christmas wreath over the weekend. Prior to that, it had still been hanging on the front of our house.
We moved in a year ago, and still haven't hung the pictures on the walls.
We have a 5 gallon bucket in the backyard full of soda cans from a party we threw in June 2007. The cans are all weather beaten and faded. I don't know what to do with it, so it still is sitting there. (it was regular pop and we only drink diet, and we had a ton left over inside too, so I had no need of it.) I don't feel like opening each can and dumping the contents, but can't throw them out or recycle them the way they are. It is kind of behind the shed - no one but us knows it is there.
Whenever I kill bugs around the house, I leave their dead bodies on the walls as warnings to their friends, rather like the old tribes who put their enemies heads on pikes as warnings to keep away. This annoys my husband to no end!

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by Surly Chick

I have a year old Hefty bag of dog poop in my backyard. It's been tied shut the whole time. I'm afraid to go close enough to pick it up now to put it in the real trash. And it rains a lot here so I'm sure water has seeped in and liquified it.

I'm moving in 3 months so I'm going to have to do something about it. I wonder if there's someplace I can rent a biohazard suit...

Maybe you should introduce it to the Cooler of Death? Unfortunately I tried but couldntfind it by searching=(

[HazelNutCoffee]

Heh. I had no idea my rotten and forlorn pumpkin would be so entertaining for you guys. I feel validated in leaving it out there for the past six months. Mwahaha.

[Taters]

My Christmas tree, still in it's stand, is still out in my backyard where I tossed it after taking down the decorations.

[Khadaji]

I got nuttin. Primarily because I'm the kind of guy who would still have his Halloween pumpkin and christmas tree - knowing this about me, I don't put up a tree or get a pumpkin.

[elfkin477]

I have a little christmas tree I traditionally put on my stereo. I couldn't be bothered to really decorate it in December, so I just hung a string of 10 lcd lights and my three favorite hallmark ornaments on it. I still haven't put them away.

[MissGypsy]

We still have a huge Christmas wreath over the fireplace, because we can’t find a container big enough to store it. A recent guest admired it, and then looked puzzled for a moment, as in “Why are there Christmas bulbs on that decoration, in April?” I laughed it off, and mentioned that the colors go well with the brick fireplace and the furniture.

I also noticed this week that while I had taken down my kitchen curtains to wash them before the holidays, I apparently forgot to put them back up. No wonder my kitchen has been so bright for the past six months.

[Shirley Ujest]

I haven't sent out Christmas cards or Brag letters in about 4 years. ( Not since the Happy Hannukwanzafestivusdivalimas* post card debacle, which no one got. morans!





*whatever the ad campaign was for Old Navy that way a metric version of all the winter holidays. That, my friends, was awesome.

[jayjay]

When I was living in Minneapolis, I turned down the ringer on my phone to avoid someone who was trying to get me to go out with him (this was when I had "Havetopickitup Syndrome") and forgot that I'd done it. A week later, as I'm happily watching a rerun of MASH, I hear a knock on my apartment door. It was a couple of Minneapolis's Finest, who were checking up on me. A friend of mine from upstate (Hibbing, up in the Iron Range) had been trying to call me for days and I wasn't picking up, so she actually called the Minneapolis police department to come see if I was alive...